


A Struggle With Feelings

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Caretaking, Feelings, Gen, Hospitals, Serious Injuries, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 18:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17166908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: When Quinn is nearly killed on a job that Eliot and Parker helped him prepare for, each of them have to reconcile feelings for the hitter that they never expected to have.





	A Struggle With Feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [decidueye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidueye/gifts).



> I don't really have the words to describe what it means to me that you returned to us after all this time. I hope you enjoy your gifts!

Getting Quinn free of the men who’d hired him to crack an uncrackable safe ended up being a near thing. Parker had been forced to use her taser and more than a few of the self-defense moves Eliot had taught her over the years just dragging him to a place that barely qualified as safe enough for her to send up a virtual flare. Even then, it took almost too long for Nate and Eliot to show, and it definitely exhausted her extremely limited repertoire of first aid skills. Parker had actually been braced for a lecture after Eliot got his first good look at Quinn, but the hitter only gave her a brief warm glance, mouthing what she thought might have been the word “thanks” before going to his knees at Quinn’s side.

Nate had acted similarly, gripping her shoulder in what she understood to be a reassuring gesture, even as he was raising his phone to call in emergency transportation to the nearest hospital. Parker had faded back then, sensing correctly that they were about to get mobbed by strangers and trusting that Eliot and Nate would be able to take what she’d told them and give the medical people what they needed to make Quinn all right.

The two of them had come in Eliot’s Charger, so Parker was surprised when – nearly an hour later – Nate was the only one approaching the car. “He bullied the EMTs into letting him ride with Quinn to the hospital,” Nate said. Parker heard a faint jingle as he tossed Eliot’s ring of keys into the air and caught it again. “You probably saved his life.”

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Parker shrugged, looking down at her shoes. “I just did what Eliot told me.”

Nate was silent for a moment before asking, “Do you want to go home, or do you want to come with me to the hospital?”

Her gut was practically begging her to go home, but Parker couldn’t shake the protective feelings she was having about Quinn. _I showed him what to do. I knew he wasn’t up to what those guys were asking him to do._ “I think I need to go to the hospital,” she said finally, forcing herself to look up into Nate’s eyes. Sophie always said it was important to look people in the eye when you talked to them. “It’s my fault he’s hurt.”

She didn’t know what she expected from Nate, but aside from a small lift of one eyebrow, the mastermind said nothing – just walked around to the driver’s side of the car.

The Charger’s motor had a comforting thrum to it, that vibrated into Parker’s bones and soothed her dark and spiraling thoughts. She was hovering on the edge of falling asleep, when Nate said, “Every time Eliot ends up in the hospital, my stomach hurts so bad I can’t eat until I know he’s going to be all right.” 

The pain in her own stomach was sharp and bright, but out loud all Parker could bring herself to say was, “I wasn’t his mastermind. I’m not smart enough for that.”

The sound Nate made startled her – it was barely audible, but Parker could have sworn it was a growl. An _angry_ growl. _I thought only Eliot growled like that._

Worried that he might be angry at her after all, Parker glanced up at him while simultaneously shrinking down into the seat. Nate didn’t look at her, keeping his attention carefully on the road, but he did say, “You are plenty smart enough, Parker. And Quinn did come to you for your expertise, so in a way you were his mastermind.”

Tears welled in Parker’s eyes. “So I was right. It was my fault he got hurt.”

Nate’s right hand twitched, and Parker sensed that he had started to reach out for her – only remembering just in time that she didn’t like to be touched when her world was all twisted up like this. “Listen to what I’m saying, Parker. It’s not your fault that Quinn was hurt, but because of the position you were in, you’re going to feel responsible.”  
******************************  
 _I should have stopped him. What the hell was I thinking, sending him to Parker?_ Behind his fear, though, Eliot understood that nothing he could have said would have stopped Quinn fulfilling the contract. Even though he had realized it was a trap – an almost certain death sentence – once Quinn took a contract he saw it through to the end.

Sending him to Parker was the best chance Eliot could give him at survival.

He hadn’t needed to fight for Quinn to be seen by simple ER doctors – the paramedics had radioed ahead regarding his condition, and a trauma team was waiting when they arrived. Eliot trailed them through the hospital, down to the OR level, before somebody noticed he was there. “Absolutely not,” the woman said, one hand planted firmly in the center of his chest. “The waiting room is through there. You can go on your own or be escorted – your choice.”

Eliot went without further argument – an escort meant distraction from Quinn, and he needed everyone the hospital thought necessary focused on whatever Quinn’s employers had done to the other hitter.

 _”Are you finally going to admit what he means to you?”_ They’d been on the road for nearly half an hour in virtual silence when Nate had finally asked the question. Eliot had already been as near to a blind panic as he could ever remember being without somebody or something to punch.

 _”Does it matter?”_ The bitterness of the words had actually caught him off guard. He’d been attracted to Quinn, sure – almost from the first punch he’d landed on Eliot back during the two Davids job. The feelings had come much later though – the easy comfort and balance they’d found working together to take down Dubenich, the celebratory dinner he’d cooked for the two of them afterwards, and the ache in his chest when Quinn had left without anything further passing between them.

Nate had been quiet long enough that for a moment Eliot had stupidly thought he was going to drop the subject. Finally though, he asked, “Why did you send him to Parker?”

Forced to confront his own choice, Eliot had at last begun sorting out the why for himself. “He had no business being within fifty miles of those people, let alone taking a contract from them. They’d already shown him how serious they were – the kind of demonstration that falls just short of putting people in the hospital. I figured Parker was his best chance.”

“Were you hoping she’d take it on for him?”

It was a good question, one he didn’t have a ready answer for, and that fact bothered him as deeply as any of the rest of it. “It wouldn’t have occurred to her,” he was finally forced to admit – which wasn’t really an answer, but it was the best he could manage in the moment.

“You know,” Nate had continued, “you didn’t answer me about acknowledging your feelings.” Eliot had risked glancing at him then, not surprised to see the look on the older man’s face. “If it matters to you,” Nate had said as their eyes met, “it matters.”

 _And that’s the heart of it, isn’t it?_ Eliot thought, collapsing into one of the plastic covered seats of the waiting room. Quinn did matter to him – in a different way than his teammates did, - but like Nate had said, a way that still mattered very much. _Why else would you be sitting here, beating yourself up?_

His panic was starting to taper off, and Eliot forced himself to close his eyes and draw several deep, centering breaths. He was no good to anyone in this state, least of all Quinn.

 _You don’t have his proxy. You’re not family._ It was a fresh, horrible kick to his adrenal glands, and Eliot immediately began searching his memory, trying to recall if anyone at the scene had asked him about his connection to Quinn. Paramedics EMTs and first responders tended not to care so much; their priority was getting the victim stabilized and into more experienced hands as quickly as possible. Any moment now, though, some MD or RN with a much cooler head was going to come through the double doors in front of him and start asking questions he couldn’t answer.

His own proxy had been given to Nate after the first time he’d been seriously hurt – in fact, it had been the first thing the mastermind had demanded once the doctors confirmed he was going to live. “You talk about how your job is to protect me,” he’d said, “but this works both ways, Eliot. There are times you won’t be able to protect yourself; when that happens, the responsibility falls to me.”

Almost as if he’d summoned Nate by way of the memory, the doors to the street finally slid open and Nate hurried through, followed closely by Parker.

The sight of the thief brought Eliot to his feet. He hadn’t followed up with Parker after sending Quinn to her, except to confirm that he had been the one to give the other hitter the knowledge of where she could be found. “It’s none of my business,” he’d told her, when she’d asked if he wanted to know what Quinn was doing and how his chances were. “Quinn’s a big boy – he’s taken care of himself for a long time without my help.”

He could see now that he’d been trying to reassure himself at the time. “How is he?” Nate asked as the two of them reached him.

Eliot knew he was on the verge of coming apart, when Nate reached out and gripped his shoulder. “They took him straight to an operating room,” he said, trying to steady his breathing as he spoke. “I heard some of what the paramedics radioed in, but my attention was strobing.” He met the mastermind’s gaze, spilling his fresh worry without hesitation. “Nate, they’re not going to talk to me. I don’t have family rights.”  
**********************************************  
Parker made no attempt to participate in the conversation between the two men. Eliot needed Nate right now, and all the ways the mastermind knew how to make things better.

“You let me worry about that,” Nate said, when Eliot expressed his worry about not having ‘family rights’ with Quinn. That she did understand. After the conversation about Nate taking Eliot’s proxy, she’d gone to Hardison and asked if he would do the same for her. Her reasoning was sound, he’d reassured her, and he’d repeatedly told her that it was smart her giving her proxy to someone, “but Mama, it can’t be me.”

Apparently it was bad if you asked someone who cared too much to make medical decisions on your behalf. “I wouldn’t ever know for sure if I was deciding what was best for you,” Hardison had explained. “I’m afraid I would be selfish and decide things for you because I wouldn’t want to lose you.”

He’d suggested that they go talk to Sophie then, and the grifter had helped clarify that yes, it was a good thing that Hardison didn’t want her proxy; that it wasn’t anywhere close to the same as not wanting _her_. “You’re very important to him,” she had said. “In a heart-way.” She’d stopped short of saying the word ‘love’, because they all knew Parker had a weird relationship with the word love, but inside her head Parker understood it was what she’d meant.

“Parker.”

The thief blinked, startled to see that Nate had left them. “I’m sorry Quinn got hurt,” she said, not waiting for Eliot to say anything else and knowing she would have only a few chances to say what she felt. “I know I was supposed to stop that from happening.”

Eliot twitched in a way that – like Nate – Parker understood to mean if she had been anyone else, he would have reached out to touch her. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You need to understand that. Quinn makes his own choices. All I wanted you to do was give him his best chance to get out of this alive.”

“Nate says I made myself responsible for him,” Parker said. “That’s why my gut hurts so bad.” She cocked her head to one side, considering Eliot and his feelings for Quinn in a new light. “I didn’t make myself responsible for Quinn though,” she went on. “You did. You made me responsible.”

Later on Parker would realize that she had expected her analysis would make Eliot angry. She couldn’t be right, after all – not about relationship stuff. But it was what made sense to her about the whole mess, and when Eliot looked guilty instead of angry, Parker began to suspect that she might understand more about people than she’d thought.

“You’re right,” he said at last. “I didn’t mean to, but that’s definitely what happened. I’m sorry.”

The two of them just looked at each other for a long moment. “You call him a friend, but it’s messier than that, isn’t it?” Parker asked him, finally.

Eliot nodded. “Nate thinks I need to tell him.”

“Nate’s really smart,” Parker countered automatically. “Are you going to stay here? Keep an eye on him?” The idea that she hadn’t so much stopped the people who’d tried to kill Quinn as she had outrun them was suddenly uppermost in her mind. She would need to check with Nate, and probably Hardison, but this whole thing was probably still bigger than Eliot and his messy feelings.

 _Which means I’m still responsible._ Both Eliot and Nate had said that part was her choice, but she wasn’t sure she could separate herself from the idea this late in the game.

Eliot seemed to sense where her thoughts were going. “Parker, he’s probably going to be in ICU for a while. They’re not going to let non-family members stay with him, and he’s not going to thank us if we tell the hospital he might be in danger.”

Parker raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t think right when your feelings are messy,” she said. “I wasn’t talking about staying in the _room_ with him.” She could keep much better watch from the air vents.

It took Eliot a moment to catch her meaning, but when he did he smiled. “Thinking outside the box. I like it.”

This time, when Parker got the sense that Eliot wanted to hug her, she ran to him and hugged him first.


End file.
